Training for the Olympics? 2020……
Yesterday at our school, we celebrated the International festival, which is a great excuse for all the kids to dash round the stalls eating and drinking exotic food from all over the world (and a great excuse for the parents to get wasted on the Brazilian stand, as they make mean Caipirinha’s!). We celebrate over 50 different nationalities represented at the school, and start the whole day with a ‘parade of nations’, which this year the Brits got to lead due to the wonderful summer we are about to have (with both the Queens 60th Jubilee celebrations and the Olympic games being hosted in London). However in true ‘international’ style, the UAE decided to march off sharpish after the bagpipe lead had started the parade, and had to be restrained while good old GB overtook to take up pole position again. Another International incident narrowly averted, without a punch up!
………..
With a much longer term view to the Olympics (yes surely swim ‘moms’ are allowed to dream a little!), this week I have been looking into the dietary intake requirements of a swimmer in training. Our daughter is finally making a more serious commitment to her swimming (ie accepts that her Belgian coach is great but a task master, instead of the most hated woman in the Universe, and that she needs to understand all the instructions in French in order to be seen in a more positive light). She has even been seen at the pool this week, giving happy ‘bisous’ (kisses) to her, which is a very Belgian tradition before they all get into the pool. However she has also been complaining of tiredness and muscle ache, but heh, if you swam on the minute amounts of food she eats, most people wouldn’t get to the end of a 25m pool, let alone complete 100m in a serious time without drowning. So thanks to Google, and various articles on the joys of swim life for kids, we have discovered that the ‘fuel’ requirements are much more heavily weighted in favour of carbs than a normal diet and obviously calorie intake needs to be relatively high and related to the timing of training and competing. Oops! mad dashes from the school to the pool without food are obviously not the way to go, topped up with packets of crisps after training!
So I’ve moved into my Carbo experiment phase with both I&T, which is of course a huge challenge for a woman who actually should avoid carbs like the plague! We’ve upped the grain bread intake this week by double (while I nibble on fruit and veg and look longingly at the over buttered toast), introduced more pasta, and the most favoured choice so far by both of them -> introduced by popular demand (OMG the influence of an American school raises it head again!) ……… the peanut butter and ‘jelly’ sandwich, for the drive between school and pool. I would like to point our now to any fellow Moms reading this blog, that due to the fact that I would be hounded out at the mere sight of a nut on the nut free campus – I am resorting to hiding the sandwiches in the boot of my car all day!! And however disgusting this combination sounds to a sensible Brit Mum, I have to say, so far this week, it’s worked!
Related articles
- Madrid launches bid for 2020 Olympics with bizarre logo that says 20020 (telegraph.co.uk) – now after my January trip to Madrid with the ‘girls’, my votes are on this location!!
- Friday’s Swim Report – All Googles Turn To America Next (the17thman.typepad.com)
- Swimming: The life of Hannah Miley (independent.co.uk)
- Diet For Competitive Swimming | LIVESTRONG.COM.
- General nutrition for competitive swimmers | Swimming. -> this is a really great site in the UK
- Eating during competitions | Swimming.
Life with Lizzi 
Hahaha the sandwiches situation is just hilarious! I can just see you in my mind, driving around town hiding dangerous contraband in the back of your car.
Awesome photos by the way! 🙂